Car Ownership
Singapore

Highlights

• Singapore's car ownership rate is roughly 11%. In the US, it is nearly 80% and it is just under 50% in Europe.
• Despite the government's policies to reduce the number of cars, there are nearly one million vehicles on Singapore's roads. More than 600,000 of those are private and rental cars, including cars used by ride-hailing services such as Grab.
• Roads take up 12% of the country's total land area, which is a far higher percentage than in many larger countries.
• A new compact car costs around $100,000 in Singapore. The same car would cost about $30,000 in the UK and the US. Despite this, the number of super-luxury cars on Singapore roads has risen in the past decade.
• The average age of cars in Singapore has steadily declined in the last 5 years and is now 5.55 years old. This goes against the global trend where cars are much older and are continuing to increase in age. For instance, 12.1 years in the US, 10.1 in Australia, 8.84 years in Japan and 11.5 in Europe.

Motor vehicle population

Figures released by the Land Transport Authority for 2021 reveal that total vehicle population in Singapore now stands at 988,755.

Private cars

The number of privately-owned cars registered last year, however, saw unusual growth. There was a 2.4% rise in the number of private passenger cars which stands at 532,204 in 2021 compared to 519,132 the previous year.

And in the first half of 2019 the number of private passenger cars on the roads has increased slightly once again – totalling 556,155.

One reason for this was the exit of ride-hailing firm Uber and with it, the halt to an aggressive private-hire fleet expansion. As a result, car Certificate of Entitlements (COEs) previously soaked up by Uber and other private-hire firms all went to individual car buyers.

Overall, though, there has been a reduction of more than 55,000 private cars in Singapore since 2013 when there were 607,292.

Rental cars

The overall number of rental cars rose in the last five years from just 16,396 in 2013 to 66,480 in 2018. However, the number dipped by 1.4% in April 2020 to 76,312. The figure is the lowest in six months and could be attributed it to the plunge in ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taxis

The number of taxis on the road has shrunk to 15,865 as of the end of February in 2021 - a 44% drop. This is being attributed to competition from private-hire cars such as Grab and Go Jek.

In addition, cab rides fell by 17.6 per cent to 647,000 trips a day.

Other vehicles on the road

Buses

The number of buses on the roads has gradually increased over the years and in 2018 there were 19,379, a slight increase on the previous year’s 19,285.

In addition, bus ridership rose by 2.2 per cent to hit the four million mark for the first time.

This is in line with Singapore’s policy to reduce car ownership and increase public transport options.

Motorcycles and scooters

The motorcycle and scooter population in Singapore currently stands at 142,229 as of 2021 which is a slight increase from the previous year’s 141,403.

Goods and other vehicles

This number has remained quite steady in the last 5 years at 143,966 in 2016 rising slightly to 144,024 in 2021.

Motor Vehicle population in Singapore

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/956271/singapore-total-motor-vehicle-population/

Overall car ownership rate

Singapore's car ownership rate is roughly 11%. In the US, it is nearly 80% and it is just under 50% in Europe.

Percentage of Singaporean households owning a car

There has been a drop in the percentage of households owning a car, from 42.1% in 2012/13 to 35.3% in 2017/18.

Percentage of car ownership in Singapore

New car sales

The new car market rose slightly in 2021 compared to 2020, when car sales were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly, the Circuit Breaker. It went from a total of 44,455 units registered in 2020 to 45,442 units, or a 2.2 percent increase, in 2021.

Most popular car brands

The Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) registration figures 2021 show that two brands dominate the market – Toyota and Mercedes Benz. BMW has climbed into third place followed by Honda. In fifth place is Hyundai.

The top five brands – Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda and Hyundai – sold a total of 28,080 cars between them, which accounted for 66 percent of the 45,442 of passenger cars sold here in 2021.

SUVs were the most popular body style, with 36.8 percent, while the next two most popular types were sedans and MPVs/station wagons. Mercedes Benz’s sales were 50 percent SUVs.

Luxury cars

The number of super-luxury cars on Singapore roads has been rising steadily for the past decade. Since 2008, their car population has risen impressively by four times in the case of Bentley.

The top six luxury car brands in Singapore in 2021 – in order of highest number of cars registered are:

1. Porsche (680)
2. Bentley (103)
3. Rolls Royce (90)
4. Ferrari (65)
5. Lamborghini (47)
6. McLaren (28)

Among the six brands, all posted higher sales here compared to 2020, according to latest figures from the Land Transport Authority.

In this segment, Porsche was the top-selling brand, with sales rising from 581 units in 2020 to 680 last year...

Ferrari was the best-selling sports car brand, with 65 units sold. Lamborghini sold 47 units while McLaren sold 28 units.

There were 90 Rolls-Royce cars sold in 2021, a 66,6 per cent increase from the previous year.

In total, the six high-end brands accounted for 1,013 cars sold – 24,6 per cent more than in 2020.

Number of electric cars in Singapore

Despite making up a tiny percentage of the overall car population in Singapore, electric vehicles (EV) are gaining popularity. Singapore has come a long way from the 1 fully electric car that was on the streets between 2014 and 2016, with 4,421 registered fully electric vehicles in 2022.

While there is still a long way to go for electric cars to become a common sight on Singapore's roads, there has been an increase of electric vehicles in the car-sharing industry. For instance, Grab added 200 EVs to its fleet in 2019; so even if there isn't a continuing increase in private EVs, there will be an increased chance of you riding in one when you use a rideshare service. Taxi operator SMRT has also said its entire fleet would comprise electric vehicles in the next five years.

Total Number of Electric Vehicles and Electric Vehicle Plug-Ins in Singapore by Year

Source: https://carbuyer.com.sg/2022-singapore-electric-car-population-grows-50-percent-in-1h-2022-while-petrol-dips/

Off peak car population

There has been a fall in registration of off-peak cars from 44,836 in 2012 to 12,028 in 2020.

Off-peak cars include weekend cars and revised Off-peak cars (ROPCs). Experts say that rebate incentives to drive an OPC are not enough to off-set the costs of owning one.

Older cars (above 10 years)

The number of COE revalidations - extending the lifespan of a COE's 10-year tenure by paying a prevailing quota premium - plunged to 22,435 in 2021, the lowest since 2015. COE prices have tended upward but despite this, sales of cars have been healthy.

Average age of cars 2021

The average age of cars in Singapore by the end of 2021 was 5.55 years. This is higher than the average age of a car in 2007, which was 3.1.

Average Age of Cars in Singapore Between 2007-2021

There is a continuing trend of a decline in the average car age since its peak in 2014 at 6.58 years. This decline is a departure from the pattern 2006 to 2014, which saw a dramatic increase in the average age of cars from 3.2 years to 6.58 years. However, this is a slight increase from 2018 when it was 5.46 cars. This may be explained partly by more people opting to stay with their car as the economic climate worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This trend also stands in contrast to the trend of car ages increasing over time in other well-developed countries. For instance, the average age of cars in the US is 11.6 years, 10.1 years in Australia, 8.29 years in Japan and 9.73 years in Europe.

Challenges of car ownership

Public roads

Building more roads is not sustainable, especially given Singapore’s land constraints. In 2019, about 12% of the country’s land area was already used for roads, compared to about 14% for housing.

The government has thus opted for vehicle ownership controls to maintain the vehicle population at levels supportable by road infrastructure as well as planned developments in public transport and traffic management systems.

In 2018, approximately 9,405 lane-kilometres of roads were paved, representing an increase from 9,293 lane- kilometres in 2017.

Congestion

In 2021, the congestion level was 29%. Since 2015, congestion levels have decreased by 2%. Despite this, however, it must be noted that Singapore drivers still spend about 105 hours a year of extra time in traffic. Singapore ranks better than London which has a congestion level of 33% (55th place) and New York with 35% congestion levels (43rd place). The prohibitive costs of cars here have a part to play in reducing traffic jams on the island compared to other developed countries. Another factor is the improvements that have been made to public transport over the years.

In 2015, Singapore had a congestion level of 31%, the same as was recorded in 2018.

Measures to reduce car ownership

Cost of car ownership

As Singapore is small and space constraint a major concern, pushing prices of cars upwards seems to be a viable measure adopted by the government.

Global vs Local

Singapore is one of the most expensive places in the world to own a car. A new compact car costs around $100,000.

Based on the same car, Singapore car prices in 2021 are up to 4 times more expensive than; Australia (US18,770), up to 5.5 times more than China (US$20,725) and 5 times more expensive than America (US$21,845). Whilst prices in London for the same car work out at around US$30,00.

There are seven factors that contribute to the cost of owning a car in Singapore.

• Registration fees
• Open Market Value (OMV)
• Excise Duty
• Certificate of Entitlement
• Additional Registration Fee (ARF)
• Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES)
• Others

There are many fees involved in owning a car in Singapore that make it prohibitively expensive.

Registration Fees - A registration fee of $220 collected upon registration for the car.

OMV -- Open market value is how much it costs for a dealer to bring it over to Singapore. It is the cost price of a car, determined by Singapore Customs. It is based on the actual price paid for the purchase of the car, freight cost of the car; and insurance and other possible charges involved in the sale and delivery of the car to Singapore.

Excise Duty -- Every car buyer must pay excise duty which is 20% of the car’s OMV, with the addition of the GST. The tax is collected by Singapore customs.

Certificate of Entitlement (COE) -- New car buyers are required to buy a Certificate of Entitlement (COE), which is valid for ten years. It is a certificate that gives car owners the legal right to register, own and use a vehicle in Singapore for a period of 10 years. This system was instituted in May 1990.

The cost of the COE depends a lot on the demand and supply of the market. This means that if the demand for the car is high, the cost of the COE can even be more expensive than the car itself.

The fee of each COE is added on to the costs of a new car based on engine size.

ARF. Additional Registration Fee is imposed upon registration of the car. It is taxed based on the OMV of the car.

For now, any vehicle with OMV of up to S$20,000 will be subjected to 100% OMV.

As for vehicles with OMV above S$20,000, they will be taxed differently based on the incremental OMV.

VES. The Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES) was implemented starting 1 January 2018 on all new cars, taxis and newly imported used cars.

The objective of it is to encourage buyers to choose a more environment-friendly model of car.

It assesses vehicles on four additional pollutants – hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and particulate matter (PM). All these on top of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The VES rebate or surcharge for the vehicle will be determined by the worst-performing pollutant of the five being assessed.

Preferential Additional Registration Fee (PARF)

A car owner may apply for a PARF rebate to offset the various taxes when registering a car. This can be done if the car is de-registered before 10 years. The term "Additional Registration Fee (ARF)" is calculated from 110% of Open Market Value (OMV). If a car is less than 5 years old, then the PARF is 75% of the ARF.

On top of that, there are many other factors that can increase the overall cost of your car purchase such as:

• Road Tax
• In-vehicle Unit fee
• Car plate number fee
• Sales commission of dealers

Then, you need to factor in car insurance, loan repayments, maintenance costs and road tax.

In Singapore car insurance is mandatory. How much you pay for it is dependent on the following: the coverage you want, the car you own, your current age and your driving history. If this is your first car, you can expect to pay about $1,500 per year. Over a 10-year period, you can expect to pay about $15,000.

You will also need to factor in costs of parking, ERP, petrol and servicing.

Vehicle growth rate

In land-scarce Singapore, the government continues to steer the country towards becoming a car-lite society by moderating vehicle population growth rate.

As part of the Land Transport Masterplan 2008, the growth rate was reduced from 3% to 1.5% from May 2009 to July 2012. The annual vehicle growth rate was further reduced to 1% in August 2012, and to 0.5% from February 2013 to January 2015. From February 2015, the annual vehicle growth rate was again halved to 0.25%.

In 2018 the new growth cap was cut to zero for all private passenger cars (Categories A and B) and motorcycles (Category D).

Public transport

In addition to a cap on vehicle growth, the government is trying to deal with congestion by investing heavily in the country's public transport network.

It has added 41 new train stations over the past six years, expanding the city-state's network by 30%.

Singapore is investing $20bn Singapore dollars ($14.9bn; £11.1bn) in new rail infrastructure, $4bn to upgrade existing infrastructure and $4bn in bus contracting subsidies.

Public transport use in 2020, saw a total of 5 million taking buses or trains a day, which was a 60 per cent fall from pre-pandemic levels.

The decrease was due to COVID-19 measures which saw more people staying at home.

The average rail daily ridership (MRT and LRT) also saw a fall to 2.2 million rides a day which can also be attributed to COVID-19 measures.